This year will be my 7th year having to deal with a Great Horned Owl and a Barred Owl here on Gobbler's Knob. The first couple of years were tough and we almost threw in the towel. But, with lots of support from other landlords who have 'been there, done that, got the t-shirt', we have reached an (un)-easy alliance with the owls.

Since many landlords either are in the same situation, or soon will be, I decided to make a video describing exactly how we built the cages that protect our purple martin systems. I've listed the materials and I also address some of the most common questions that we commonly receive each year about the cages.

 

Here are a few of the many videos I've recorded of the GHO attacking my colony. I did not arrive at deciding upon this solution easily - it was difficult and a lot of work.  If anything else would have worked, I would have done that first. But this was ultimately the only solution that saved my colony.

 

July, 2015: https://youtu.be/12lQopYkRdk

 

GHO attacks Trendsetter and gourd rack: https://youtu.be/RexdpWmqgLY

Building an Owl Excluder for Purple Martin Systems

 

 

 

 

 

Nest Checks, New Hatchlings and Nets

My last nest check revealed I have 73 pair so far, with a total of 84 gourds offered.  I continue to be amazed at the resiliency of the purple martin, especially since the Great Horned Owl persists with her attacks.  As an added challenge this year, I've also had a problem now with the Barred Owl attacking my tree swallow and bluebird housing.
But for now, back to my GHO update.  On the morning of April 30th, I became quite alarmed to see the GHO has, after 3 years with these cages, now figured out how to get up and inside to perch on the inside arms of the rack.

After 2 days or mourning and feeling sorry for myself, I decided to cowgirl-up and my husband and I designed a "cargo net" style bottom which would balance the need of the purple martins to both exit quickly when a hawk attacked as well as serve to keep the GHO out. With the mandatory requirement of it being "quick release" so that I could continue with nest checks, we purchased some polypropylene rope, zip ties, quick release clips and some garden stakes.  The first 'net' picture you see below has 14x12" holes in it - I can always adjust the size of these holes if the owl gets through, but since the owl's wingspan ranges from 36"-60", I'm hoping I don't have to change these.  The 4 long ropes are crossed by 6 shorter ropes, tied together using zip ties at each crossing.

I've put together the video below to show other landlords how the netting is connected to the cages and how it quick releases for nest checks.  I made a mistake in the video - the rope is called, "polypropylene".  :)

For the round racks, a different approach was used to the the netting.

While the owl has definitely made my nest checks a little more time-consuming, my husband has always helped me come up with ideas to enable me to keep doing them. Given the heat & humidity we experience here in Missouri during the summer, it's imperative that I know the ages of the kids, because inevitably, I will have a few nestlings that will either get knocked off porches or they will jump and I need to know in which nest to put them back.
New "pinkies"!

Photo taken by my friend, Lu Ann Coons at her colony site here in Missouri.

It was very apparent the nest in the video below had just started hatching.  While it's tempting to help remove the shells from the little, adorable nestlings, because their skin is still so delicate and could be still attached to the shell, I never 'help'. I let Nature take its course - the baby will be stronger for it and I avoid damaging him/her.

When Love and Despair Collide

...or maybe a better title is, "when two passions collide".  I dunno. The 2016 purple martin season was my most challenging season I've ever experienced.  It was a year where my old self and my 'new & evolved' self encountered each other and had many, many heated conversations.  Being passionate about wildlife means you have to accept many pleasant and unpleasant things dealing with life and death.
Our 23 acres, nicknamed "Gobbler's Knob" is a true wildlife sanctuary.  A sanctuary where all native wildlife, whether predator or prey, is welcome. I am blessed to have the opportunity to work from home and be able to observe the predators that frequent my back yard and even more fortunate when one hangs around long enough for me to get its photograph.
We have coyotes.

We have foxes.

We have quail (as well as many other native birds) nesting here.

We have Red Shouldered hawks.

We have an extremely fast, aggressive Sharp-shinned hawk that visits my site early every spring to help herself to the tired, migrating martins and manages to bring out the very best selection of my Navy vocabulary.

We even have our beloved national symbol visit my backyard, only 50 feet from my office window - the American Bald Eagle.

But one predator in particular - my resident Great Horned Owl - has worn out her welcome and this past purple martin season she pushed....nay - she strained the limits of my love for her.  The problems I had with her this past year drove me into deep introspection and forced me to explore my commitment to being a good steward to all things wild, possibly even shutting down my colony.
I totally understand that each and every animal is subject the predator-prey relationship.  That is the one law to which all members of nature are bound, not because they signed on to it, but just by the very virtue of their existence, they must abide by it, including me.  My reasons for not killing this owl have always extended far beyond the fact that it is illegal to do so. No, I have not killed her because of my own principles - I strongly believe we need predators to maintain the balance that Mother Nature requires.
Since 2014, this GHO has been attacking my purple martin colony.  Actually, after reviewing my records and with the benefit of hindsight to see patterns, I think it has been longer than that - maybe as early as 2012, but this past year (2016), she decided that she liked this buffet setup and upped her game.
With my monitoring setup, I knew when she first arrived at the beginning of the 2016 season.  But I was prepared - I had everything caged in and I was determined she would get even less meals here this year than she did in 2015.

"*PREVENTION is KEY* - install owl guards BEFORE you have a problem.  Radios (and cds with recorded 'home' noises, including a shot gun), flood lights, red lights on top of racks, scare crows, reflector tape, even setting off firecrackers  - all of those things may temporarily work for a week, even two or three weeks, but he/she will be back."

As she escalated her attacks every week and became more aggressive, I also escalated.  At every turn she made, I was there with a counter-measure.  Everything we tried only worked for one to three weeks, depending on the counter-measure we put in place.  I was often getting up at 3:00 A.M. to scare her off when she came for her early-morning raids; but still my principles held - I refused to kill her.  But I also have a full-time job and couldn't be out there every night to stop her and she took full advantage of my absences.
During the first week of July, she decided it was time to increase her success rate and learn how to get past the barriers that had worked very well the least few years. After returning from a business trip in mid-July, I was stunned to watch a video of her 'walking' around the exterior of the cage attached to the Trendsetter, probing the 4"x4" openings I had made in the wire, meant to make it easier for the martins to enter and exit the wire caging.
It was then that she managed to truly bring me to the edge of a cliff that I didn't want to be on as I watched the next 2 videos.  My heart broke, my chest constricted and my throat went dry.  Despite everything we had in place, she was flushing them out of the housing and grabbing them as they exited their nest boxes. Those that flushed were doomed.
In one of the videos, she dragged one of the martins through the cage hole and landed near the game camera, where I could hear his screeching until he died.  Sobbing doesn't even begin to adequately describe what I was doing when the video ended.
**WARNING - both videos below are difficult to watch, much less listen to....

As I watched from the depths of my despair, my anger flashed beyond boiling.  I thought, "I am done- I have failed them....I no longer know what to do." Even though it was daylight, I was ready to hunt her down and kill her.  My brain was on fire, while my heart simultaneously ached.  It was obvious the caging on the house was too close to the porches, but with the wind load here in Missouri and the fact it had worked for the last 2 years, I hadn't been concerned about it. I stormed through the house, swearing that was the last martin she was going to eat.  She had gone too far.
I went outside to vent my sorrow to the wind and the trees. As I stood in the yard near my gourd racks,  the activity in my colony that day belied the horrors of the night before, making me feel even more devastated.  These resilient birds who had to have heard the dying cries of their brothers, were busily flying to and fro in the hot, bright sunshine, feeding the remaining nestlings.  It was almost surreal. 
My most immediate concern was for the welfare of the remaining nestlings in the house, so, hoping that she wouldn't want to get her wings tangled up with some light-weight twine, I used some mostly-empty bottles to weigh down some twine around the remaining nests.  It worked to save the remaining adults and nestlings.

As the heat intensified that day, I watched the videos above again & again, torturing myself I suppose for losing this battle with the owl.  I deserved the torture. It took a long time to sort my feelings out - months even, but eventually, I realized I was actually more angry at myself than at her. She was doing what any owl or other predator for that matter, would do if they found an easy meal and her mind was only focused on two things - her own survival and that of her owlets which she was likely feeding at the time.
After all the anger, sorrow, despair, crying a river of tears, I received a few emails from a few friends that made me decide I need to pick up my pieces and move forward.  So how do I go forward now?  I have decided that I need to remove the Trendsetter and replace it with another gourd rack, specifically, a Super System gourd rack with a 3" pole, which will allow me to mount a larger cage that will extend further from the openings of the nests and withstand the Missouri winds better.  My Trendsetter has a lot of sentimental value for me, but even extending the cage on it at this point still allows her to flush the martins out at night and this house is obviously now her favorite target.
I have learned so much about owls in the last 2 years and if a new martin landlord asked me about owls today I would tell them, "*PREVENTION is KEY* - install owl guards BEFORE you have a problem."  Once an owl discovers that there is 'food' in those gourds / nestboxes, there will be no stopping him/her - he/ she will be relentless.  Radios (and cds with recorded 'home' noises, including a shot gun), flood lights, red lights on top of racks, scare crows, reflector tape, even setting off firecrackers  - all of those things may temporarily work for a week, even two or three weeks, but he/she will be back and nothing will stop the attacks.  The most absolute best guard against an owl is to setup owl guards as preventative / proactive measures, instead of having to always *react* and be on defense.
The first step to healing is to forgive yourself.  As Dana Ripper from MRBO emailed me, "hopefully you still produced a gazillion babies though"!  It made me smile.  It was the first positive thought I'd had on this topic in a long time.  My friend Greta Webb emailed me and said, "We can learn more from our mistakes than from our successes."  Thank you Dana and Greta...you set me back on my path.
My New Year's resolution was to forgive myself for my mistakes.  With that, I'm moving forward to the 2017 Purple Martin Season, with a look back at the 2016 - which doesn't look like it was so bleak after all. 
Enjoy the video.

New Season, More Changes

On Saturday, 3/26 it reached 69 degrees on Gobbler's Knob. But with the ever-present Spring wind, it felt a bit cooler - maybe 68 degrees.  Heh! Oh, but it was so beautiful and there was absolutely no way, I was going to stay indoors.  I was quite surprised when I flushed my martins - it appears my 84 cavity colony is already 1/2 full!  I've never been that full by this time of year before.
My first priority was to finish up my owl cages on my Deluxe gourd racks.  My jerry-rigged, owl interference didn't work as well on those racks last year and I've no doubt that I'll be seeing my Great Horned Owl again this year and possibly, my Barred Owl as well.
I would have caged these 2 racks last year, however, I could never come up with an idea that would work, both because these racks had no place to mount homemade supports for the wire and there were also weight considerations (it's windy here in the spring!).  In summer of 2015, we figured out what we needed to do.  I ordered the same stainless steel arms for these racks from the original manufacturer, only the length of these arms would be changed to 36" and they would have the same gourd mounting holes as the originals.  I ordered 8 arms per rack as that would be enough to support the type of wire cage I needed to build.
Here's what my racks looked like last year, just using garden stakes as a 'cage' to interfere with any owl messing with them.

I decided that I would use 4 panels of 4 foot-high welded-mesh wire fencing, per rack.  Each panel is cut to 56" wide, allowing me to bow them out almost 10" from the front of each gourd.  I was surprised how light the 4 panels were, as I gathered them up and carried them out to the first rack.  The top of each panel is mounted on a stainless steel rod and I added the heavy duty garden stakes along the top in between the new stainless rods, to add more support.

Note the two new, extra long stainless rods. Each panel is cinched together with a heavy duty zip tie, tightening it down on the rod.

Heavy duty zip ties hold together the edges of each panel in place on the rods.  The inside white zip tie is there only to keep the yellow tie & wire from sliding inward.

A smaller zip tie was added inside on just the rod (not holding anything), but will help keep the outside yellow zip tie from sliding inward.

The tops of the panels are all zip-tied to the garden stakes and the top wire 'ceiling' along the way, closing all the gaps at the top.  All I have to do is cut the 3 zip ties holding each panel to the next at the seam, leaving the zip ties at the top that hold it to the extra heavy rods on the top, lift the panel up and walk in.

Each rectangle is 2" wide - you can see the cage is at least 10" out in front of each gourd entrance.

As with my other rack that I enclosed a couple of years ago, I will need to work a little more slowly and be more cognizant of where my face is at all times, since some martins tend to flush out of the gourd at the very last second.
The fencing is 48" high so it drops below the most bottom gourds about 6".  I will have to monitor to see if that's going to be sufficient

East Rack - 3/26/2016

Mid Rack - 3/26/2016

Each cage took 35 - 40 minutes to install and I was really glad that I made the changes early in the day, since it took the colony some time to adjust to their new surroundings. So, 38 feet of mesh wire fencing, a couple of packs of zip ties, some heavy duty stainless steel rods, 24 feet of undersill trim to make some nice, 4"x4" landing spots, a handy pair of wire cutters and a good pair of leather work gloves and I'll be able to better sleep at night.  I think my most stressful time last year was when the new fledges came home late in the evening and hunkered down on the inside gourd arms.  I knew those 'easy catches' were going to attract the owl and I spent many hours & nights outside with them, trying to gently encourage them inside or leave the site. With these new cages, they can safely roost on the arms if they want and stick their tongues out at the GHO when she comes.
Some were initially frightened by the changes, fluttering around and around the outside of the cages, while others flew under and straight up to their gourd without missing a beat.  Some ended up hanging upside down on the cage, and some landed on top and dropped right through to their gourd.  Some of the territorial fighting resumed, with the males quickly reclaiming their gourds as their competitors dropped through the top of the wire in full battle mode, proving that each of these birds have their own character and personality as unique as we humans.
I had a really hard time not laughing out loud (and I can laugh really loud) at some of the antics in this video.  Enjoy!

Everything is Out of Sorts Today

We have gotten a lot of rain in the last couple of weeks - most of it in the last 2 days.  Today, I feel like everything is out of sorts, as my Grandmother used to say.  Nothing feels right.  After almost 2 years of drought, I thought we were going to lose all our fish in our ever-shrinking pond this summer.  But now it's overflowing its banks - way out of bounds.  I now have to worry that our bass and bluegill will end up in our neighbor's pond as our overflow has backed up and it drains into his pond.  Get back in your own pond.

The pond is well over 15' out of its banks - we normally ride our 4-wheelers down this path that is now filled with water.

Somehow, with so much rain, grass is growing in our driveway - way out of bounds.  I should celebrate the ladino clover in the middle of it that magically, somehow appeared.  You can't mow this stuff too much either.  After 5 or 6 mowings already, it is still blooming!

Everything is so doggone wet!  Along with 3 launch failures this morning.  They are wet & stinky.  They're not happy about this turn of events.  Neither am I.

3 new failed launches this morning

I swear, even the ticks are parachuting off the door trims and landing on my head.  I don't know where they're all coming from.  I may choose to borrow Nikki's Frontline.
Even Olivia seems out of sorts - all wet and cranky.  As I was filming her playing hide-n-seek, she stopped on the open deck and turned toward me.  As she gazed at my toes, I suddenly realized just how vulnerable my bare feet were.  I decided it was time to start acting like I knew how to River dance and I kept my feet moving until I was safely back inside the enclosed porch.

But at its root, I know why I'm out of sorts today.  After checking on my colony every 10-15 minutes last night, I was alarmed when my GHO flew out from under my deck.  I hadn't seen her come in and when I went to check the videos, I found that she had attacked the Trendsetter in between one of my checks, in a spot where a new fledge had been trying for an hour to get into a cavity.  Check out the video below - she comes in from the left and hangs on to the Trendsetter for an eternity.  In the video, the fledge flies past the camera during the attack, so fortunately, he lives to tell the tale.  Other martins flushed from the other racks too.  Silly birds....stay put!!  Worst of all, my stupid game camera (seen in the video below) is only 12-13 feet away, didn't capture any of it.  I checked it today - 99% battery.  In the heat & humidity, I was tempted to boot it across the field.  Instead, I rebooted it the standard way - hopefully, it won't have anything to capture tonight, but will be able to if needed.

After seeing a video from 12:10 AM on 6/30, it became obvious that Ellie Mae is going to have to visit the unemployment lines.  Absolutely useless.  As have been most of the other methods that people have suggested.  I am out of ideas - it is check.mate.  She will always be here.  Nothing scares her.
Lights - tried it - failed.
Radio - tried it - failed.
Lights + radio - tried it - failed.
Motion detection lights - tried it - failed.
Scarecrow - tried it - failed.
Let's face it; the only protection that works 100% of the time are the owl cages.  I have plenty of alternate food here - rabbits, feral cats, moles, voles, mice, snakes, etc.  Yet, my owl prefers an easy-to-get meal.  Well, she won't get one here as long as they stay behind the cages.  Otherwise I can't guarantee anything. But I won't kill her.  Another one will only take her place.  We will just do the best we can with *preventative* measures and accept that I have a beautiful, very smart owl.  I just need to be smarter.
I will enjoy the positive things.  At least the Compass Plant - after 6 years of waiting - is finally blooming.  This makes me happy today.  Mag.freaking.nificent!!! Beautiful, isn't it?  Definitely worth the wait.

Compass Plant - 6 years old, finally blooming.

So, what do you do when you have such an off-kilter, out-of-sorts day?  Well, you suck it up.  Thaw out some crickets, soak them in some bird-vitamin solution and stuff the wet kids full of food.  Leave them in a bucket until they're dry and put them back out in a dry gourd on the rack from whence they came. 
You stop and enjoy the clasping milkweed that has grown out of bounds - where no seed has been planted (not by you, anyway).

Clasping Milkweed (thanks for ID info to Louise Chambers)

You stop and watch your happy, chattering purple martins chasing down the bug hatches in the field, because despite my owl's best efforts, they are clearly undeterred in their mission to feed their kids, and get them flying.

You herd the fish back into the main body of the pond, by splashing about in your muck boots.  You stop and enjoy the common milkweed that is now spreading out into the yard and tell Mr. Freeze he no longer needs to mow there.

Then you park your butt on the porch with a good book, a glass of wine, a pair of binoculars and your muck boots (just in case you have more launch failures) and watch your colony for the rest of the day.  After all, it is still MY little piece of heaven, and despite all the challenges, I am diggin' it here at Gobbler's Knob.